Tag Archives: Ron Siegel

Over his storied career, Ron Siegel has worked for an impressive lineup of chefs, including Daniel Boulud, Michael Mina, and Thomas Keller, the latter for whom he served as the inaugural sous chef for The French Laundry.

But now Siegel is finally working for himself.

In a most splendid fashion, too.

Madcap, his first very own restaurant, opened in San Anselmo earlier this summer. You’ll find him in the compact kitchen, which he has joked is smaller than the walk-in at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco, where he was executive chef for many years. His wife Kimberly, whom he met when she was a server at The French Laundry, runs the front of the house. And when his two teen-age daughters aren’t in school, they often can be found in the dining room, jotting down orders.

The stunning rabbit tortelloni.

It’s a small venue, about 47 seats, yet it feels a bit larger, thanks to the fact that there are two dining rooms. Artist Michael Brennan conceived the warm space, punctuated by dark wood, a marble bar top (where about three people can squeeze in to dine), deep red velvet banquettes, and his own eclectic paintings, including one of Raquel Welch striking an iconic pose from “One Million Years B.C.”

When Will Pacio was studying for his bachelor’s degree in psychology at Stanford University, little did he know he’d be returning to Palo Alto a decade later – not as a doctor, as he first imagined, but as a seasoned restaurateur who has since cooked for the likes of Thomas Keller.

The fact that Pacio used to doodle images of pork buns in his notebooks during his morning biology class, though, no doubt helped clue him into what his true passion was.

It’s a similar menu to his first Spice Kit, which opened two years ago in San Francisco. But the Palo Alto locale also features a kids’ menu and outstanding vegetarian buns stuffed with shiitakes, cucumbers and crushed peanuts.

Pacio, who worked at Keller’s Per Se in New York and French Laundry in Yountville, founded Spice Kit with business partner, Chef Fred Tang, formerly of the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco.

I had a chance to sit down with the 32-year-old Pacio to talk about how sheer tenacity landed him the job at Per Se, his nerve-wracking experience cooking for Keller for the first time, and what his doctor-father thought about him turning his back on med school.

Q. How in the world did you go from wanting to become a doctor to wanting to become a chef?

A. It was a year after graduation, when I was working as a researcher at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Palo Alto and applying to medical schools. My roommate (Stephen Chau, another Stanford graduate, who went on to invent Street View at Google) was working at Goldman Sachs, so he was never home.

We lived behind the Menlo Park Left Bank restaurant. So, one day, I just knocked on the back door and asked Chef Christopher Floyd if I could work for free. The next thing I knew, I was working there for three months, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., chopping lots and lots of onions. Probably 100 pounds at a time. I shucked a lot of oysters, too. Then, later, I was allowed to do plated desserts.

In college, we’d eat out a lot. In my junior year, nine friends and I went to the Fifth Floor in San Francisco. It was when Laurent Gras was still the chef. I think it was my first fine dining experience. It was the first time I had foie gras. We had no credit cards. So, I just remember this stack of $2,000 in bills sitting on the table afterward.

I had friends in New York, so I’d go visit them. I ate at Daniel and Blue Ribbon. All the money I was making was going to food and eating out. Soon, I started wondering how to make some of the things I was eating.

Q: Your father is a doctor. One of your sisters is a doctor. You were supposed to be a doctor. What was it like telling your parents that you wanted to be a chef?

A: It was a brutal conversation. There was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of ‘No way!’ and ‘No how!’

I’d already applied to the French Culinary Institute in New York when I told them. So, I told my parents I’d go to culinary school and then get an MBA. That’s how I sold it to them. But, of course, I never did get the MBA.

Q: How’d you go straight from culinary school to working with one of the best chefs in the world?

Surprising New Chef at Michael Mina Restaurant, Plus a Bar Treat

Ron Siegel, who was on the opening team at the French Laundry in Yountville and the first American ever to defeat an “Iron Chef” on the original Japanese cult cooking show, is the new head chef at Michael Mina restaurant in San Francisco.

For Siegel, who has spent nearly a decade at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, it’s a home-coming of sorts.

Chef Mina first hired Siegel as a line cook in 1991 at Aqua, the restaurant that used to operate on the same spot where Mina’s eponymous flagship now is.

In the ensuing years, Siegel, a Palo Alto High School grad, worked at Danielin New York, then became head chef at Masa’s in San Francisco, Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco, and both the Dining Room and its new incarnation, Parallel 37, at the Ritz-Carlton.

“Michael has been a mentor since the early days of my career and it is an honor for me to join the Michael Mina San Francisco team, cooking alongside him,” said Siegel, in a statement.

Siegel will start in September.

Meantime, Michael Mina restaurant wants to entice visitors to its swank bar by offering its famous tuna tartare for a special price of $10 (regularly $19).